28 July 2016

BOSTON, MA July 28, 2016 For the third year in a row, food and beverage small-business owners from across the country have the opportunity to submit their best sales pitch for the Brewing the American Dream Pitch Room Wild Card, hosted by Samuel Adams and Entrepreneur Media. The Wild Card is the virtual portion of the Brewing the American Dream Pitch Room competition, which gives up-and-coming food and beverage entrepreneurs an amazing chance to perfect the art of their sales pitch and win a business grant.

From July 28th to August 19th, small-business owners with a packaged food or beverage product, including craft brewers, are invited to upload a two-minute video of their best sales pitch to http://entm.ag/SamAdamsPitch. A panel of experts from Samuel Adams and Entrepreneur will judge the videos based on criteria including pitch quality, creativity, passion, and product viability.

The top five or six best video submissions, selected by the panel, will be posted on Entrepreneur.com, and the general public will be invited to vote for their favorite from September 1st –23. The small-business owner who receives the most votes for his/her sales pitch will be named the Wild Card winner and receive a trip for two to compete in the Brewing the American Dream Pitch Room competition finals in Boston this December where they'll compete with finalists from Denver, San Diego, Boston, and Washington, D.C. The ultimate winner of the 2016 Pitch Room will be awarded a $10,000 business grant and extended mentoring from Samuel Adams.

For more information on how to apply for the Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream Pitch Room Wild Card Competition, please visit: http://entm.ag/SamAdamsPitch.

"We're thrilled to host this program on Entrepreneur.com and share this incredible opportunity with our audience for a third year," comments Dan Bova, editorial director for Entrepreneur.com. "Every year, we are impressed by the creativity and passion of the participants and expect this year to be no different. " Bova added, "Founder and brewer Jim Koch is the embodiment of the entrepreneurial spirit—he created an amazing product and started a craft beer revolution from his kitchen! His energy and willingness to share what he has learned over the years is truly inspiring and we're very excited to team-up with Sam Adams again on this."

Jim Koch recalled that when he first started Sam Adams, he carried cold beer samples in his briefcase and went from bar to bar with Boston Lager to explain why it was a better beer than what was out there. "While a few owners were receptive, most were pretty tough and I quickly understood the need for a really good, but brief, sales pitch," he said. "Our goal with this event is to get more small food and beverage businesses involved in the Pitch Room so they can also improve how they communicate about their product, as well as gain exposure to potential customers."

Koch added that he's looking forward to working with Entrepreneur once again on the Wild Card. "Entrepreneur has an amazing reputation for helping up-and-coming small businesses, and I can't think of a better partner for hosting this competition."

Jim recently chronicled the opportunities and challenges of starting The Boston Beer Company and introducing Samuel Adams Boston Lager – including figuring out how to sell it – in his new book, Quench Your Own Thirst: Business Lessons Learned Over a Beer or Two. Listed as a top 10 book by The Wall Street Journal, it offers unconventional business lessons, and all profits are being donated to help fund the Brewing the American Dream program.

Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream

The Pitch Room Competition is part of Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream, a micro-lending and coaching program for food and beverage small businesses including craft brewers that provides a unique combination of the two things Jim Koch wished he had when starting Sam Adams: access to capital and expert business advice. As an important extension of the program's coaching and mentoring activities, the Pitch Room Competition has played a key role in helping small-business owners better position and communicate about their products, as well as gain exposure to important food and beverage retailers and buyers.

The Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream program was launched in 2008 in partnership with Accion, the nation's leading nonprofit provider of small business capital and coaching, and through the support of Brewing the American Dream, Accion has lent more than $9.6 million to nearly 900 businesses. Just as important, the program has coached or mentored over 6,000 businesses and created or saved more than 3,500 jobs. To learn more please visit: http://btad.samueladams.com.

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